Collect more responses with interactive RCS surveys and 250+ industry-ready templates
Customize, connect, and send branded surveys right inside your customer's texting inbox. Star ratings, tappable answers, and follow-up questions, answered in one tap, no app to download.
Survey templates built for every industry
SMS just grew up. Meet Rich Communication Services.
RCS is the next evolution of texting. Instead of a plain link to a survey form, you ask branded, interactive questions, star ratings, tappable answers, and recommend scales, right inside your customer's native messaging inbox. They answer in one tap, so far more people actually respond. No survey app or link to open.
- · Plain text, no branding, easy to ignore
- · Shady-looking link to a separate form
- · Extra taps to open, most never finish
- · You can't tell who really sent it
Thanks for shopping with us! Tap a rating below, it takes one second and helps us improve.
- · Verified, branded sender
- · Images, carousels & buttons
- · Two-way, app-like conversations
- · Read receipts & rich analytics
A complete survey flow, start to finish
One RCS thread asks the question, collects a one-tap answer, branches to the right follow-up, and says thanks: a conversation, not a form to fill out.
A branded rich card asks the first question with tappable answers.
Star ratings and reply chips turn questions into instant, structured responses.
Each answer triggers the right next question, right in the thread.
Hand off to staff the moment a guest needs a person.
One survey channel. Endless use cases.
From post-event feedback to five-star stays, RCS Surveys gives every team a head start. Browse a few of the survey journeys you can launch today.
A searchable library of 250+ designed surveys
Browse by industry, survey type, tone, provider, and use case. Preview a survey template, make it yours, and send, all in one streamlined workflow built for feedback teams.
Thanks for joining us, {{first_name}}! On a scale of 1–5, how likely are you to recommend Summit to a colleague? Tap a number — that's the whole survey.
Post-Event Net Promoter
We hope the Ocean Suite treated you well! Tap a star rating below — and if anything fell short, tell us and a manager will make it right today.
Post-Stay Satisfaction
You just finished setup, {{first_name}}. How easy was it to get going? Your answer helps us smooth out the rough edges for everyone.
Onboarding Check-In
Your support changes lives. What matters most to you about our work right now? Pick one — it shapes where we focus next quarter.
Donor Pulse
Your order landed a week ago — how's it holding up? Tap a rating, and if you love it we'll help you post a review in two taps.
Post-Purchase Review
Now that we've wrapped, {{first_name}}, how satisfied are you with the outcome? Three quick taps and an optional note — that's it.
Engagement Wrap-Up
Thanks for seeing Dr. Patel today. How would you rate your visit? Your feedback is confidential and helps us care for patients better.
Visit Feedback
Order #{{order_id}} was delivered, {{first_name}}. How easy was the delivery and tracking experience? One tap tells us a lot.
Delivery Experience
We've got room for one big feature this quarter, {{first_name}}. Which should we ship first? Tap to vote — results update live.
Feature Vote
Sorry to see you cancel. What was the main reason? It's anonymous, takes one tap, and genuinely shapes what we fix next.
Churn-Reason Survey
Two dishes, one spot on the menu, {{first_name}}. Which should we run this weekend? Voters get 10% off when they come in.
Weekend Quick Poll
Three months in, {{first_name}} — how likely are you to recommend Peak to a friend? Tap a score, and tell us one thing we could do better.
Member Satisfaction
250+ ready-made survey templates
A searchable library covering every survey you can imagine.
Industry-specific survey packs
Curated bundles built for your vertical, out of the box.
Drag-and-edit customization
Swap questions, scales, and media without touching code.
Rich questions & actions
Star ratings, recommend scales, answer buttons, and reply chips built in.
Provider-ready exports
Export clean payloads for your messaging provider.
Response-ready copy
Clear, on-brand questions written to get answered.
Team-friendly workflow
Share, duplicate, and ship together in one place.
Fast launch
Go from idea to live survey in minutes, not weeks.
Build once. Send through any provider.
RCS Surveys is provider-flexible. Design your survey one time, then connect it to the backend that sends it to your customers. Switch or add providers whenever you need to.
Survey-sending features by provider
A high-level look at the RCS Business Messaging capabilities that matter for sending surveys. Summarized from each provider's public docs; verify specifics on their RCS page.
| Feature | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rich question cards | |||||
| Carousel questions | |||||
| Tappable answers & reply chips | |||||
| Media (images / video / files) | |||||
| Branded & verified survey sender | |||||
| Two-way responses | ? | ||||
| Read receipts & typing | |||||
| SMS / MMS survey fallback | |||||
| Delivery & response analytics | |||||
| Global / multi-carrier reach |
Marketing-native RCS for B2C teams, with consent & compliance built in.
Standout: TCPA-compliant consent management, pre-flight message scanning & unified analytics.
Sureshot RCS pageBoutique CPaaS with a no-code RCS Studio, focused on US senders.
Standout: Drag-and-drop RCS Studio with direct US carrier connections & hands-on sender registration.
Signalmash RCS pageProgrammable messaging at global scale: RCS in one API alongside SMS, MMS & WhatsApp.
Standout: Content Template Builder with automatic SMS/MMS fallback across 23+ countries.
Twilio RCS pageRCS through the unified Vonage Messages API for developers.
Standout: One Messages API spanning RCS, SMS, MMS & WhatsApp; carousels of 2–10 cards.
Vonage RCS pageUS-focused RCS with direct carrier relationships and registration expertise.
Standout: Registered Google RBM partner; upgrades existing 10DLC / Toll-Free / Short Code traffic.
Bandwidth RCS pageSkip the approval maze. Launch in days, not weeks.
Getting your branded RCS survey sender live means clearing Google brand and agent verification, carrier and telecom review, and each provider's own content rules: a slow, opaque process where a single missed detail sends you back to the start. RCS Surveys streamlines it using patterns from senders that are already approved.
Why RCS survey senders get stuck
Google brand & agent verification
Before a single survey sends, your brand and RCS agent must be verified by Google. Incomplete branding, logos, or sample messages bounce the application back to the start.
Often 1–3 weeksCarrier & telecom review
Mobile operators review agents and survey senders market-by-market, each with their own rules. A sender cleared in one region can stall waiting on another carrier's queue.
Varies by regionProvider-specific requirements
Twilio, Vonage, Bandwidth and others each have their own submission formats, content policies, and opt-in proof. Miss a detail and you're back in the queue for another round.
Different per providerApprovals built on what already works
Instead of guessing what Google and the carriers want, you start from survey templates shaped by senders that have already cleared review. The branding, opt-in language, and message structure are already aligned with what gets approved, so you submit with confidence and spend far less time in rejection loops.
- Modeled on similar, already-approved survey senders
- Fewer rejections and resubmissions
- Submission formatted correctly per provider
- Hands-on support to resolve reviewer flags
- 1
Start from a pre-vetted survey template
Your survey is built on a structure modeled after similar surveys that have already been approved: content, branding, and opt-in patterns reviewers expect.
- 2
Submit against a guided checklist
We map your assets to each gatekeeper's requirements up front, so brand verification, sample questions, and use-case justification are complete before you submit.
- 3
Clear Google & the carriers
Submissions go in the right format for each provider and market, reducing the rejection-and-resubmit loops that cause most of the delay.
- 4
Go live with support
If a reviewer flags something, we help you resolve it directly with the provider, so you reach live status without losing weeks to back-and-forth.
Approval timelines and requirements are set by Google and the mobile carriers and vary by brand, use case, and region. RCS Surveys can't guarantee approval, but a pre-vetted, correctly-formatted submission is the single biggest lever for getting through review faster.
Go from survey templates to intelligent feedback
Pro turns your survey library into a personalized, AI-powered feedback engine with real-time response analytics, no full engineering team required.
Upload CSV, personalize every survey
Map customer variables in seconds.
Personalize surveys with names, dates, booking details, recent purchases, event info, and any custom field you bring.
AI that reads every response
Themes, summarizes, and follows up, 24/7.
AI reads open-ended answers, tags them by theme, summarizes the sentiment, and auto-sends a smart follow-up question to close the loop, grounded in your knowledge base.
Survey flows
Multi-step surveys that ask, branch, and follow up.
Chain survey templates into automated journeys: reminders, re-asks, post-purchase pulses, and onboarding check-ins. Each step can wait, branch on the customer's answer, or let AI ask the right follow-up. Start from 100+ ready-made survey flows across every industry.
Build smarter survey flows, branching journeys, triggers, and AI response analysis, without needing a full engineering team.
AI that reads responses from your knowledge base
Connect your FAQs, policies, listings, and docs. The AI reads every survey response, themes and summarizes open-ended answers, auto-asks the right follow-up question grounded in your content, and hands off to a human when needed.
FAQs, policies, listings, menus, and docs: your content grounds every follow-up question.
Open-ended answers are tagged by theme and summarized, so patterns surface without manual reading.
The AI closes the loop with a smart, on-brand follow-up question grounded in your knowledge base.
When a response needs a person, it escalates to your team instantly.
Explore AI Ambassador, purpose-built AI experiences for events, vacation rentals, hotels, and nonprofits.
Now your surveys are agent-native
Beyond a human dashboard: an authenticated gateway lets autonomous AI agents discover, author, clone, send, and analyze RCS surveys programmatically — exposed as an MCP server, a CLI, and an embeddable client.
MCP server
rcs-surveys-mcpProDrop the library into any MCP-capable agent
CLI
rcs-surveysProJSON in, JSON out — pipe it anywhere
Typed client
GatewayClientEmbed the gateway in your own code
Least-privilege keys, the same provider-approval gate as the human app, and packaged workflows from find-and-clone-survey to survey-in-a-box.
See how RCS Surveys works
Watch a quick walkthrough: choose a survey, customize it, connect your provider, upload variables, and send the survey, start to finish in minutes.
Simple plans that scale with your surveys
Start free, upgrade when you're ready to send. Every plan is built to help feedback teams move faster.
Free
Explore the library and test survey ideas.
- Full access to 500 survey questions
- 10 free survey sends to test
- Survey previews & customization
- Basic response analytics
Best for testing survey ideas
Pro
Everything you need to launch real surveys.
- 300 survey questions / month
- Full access to 500 survey questions
- CSV variable uploads
- AI response analysis: theming & summaries
- Real-time response analytics & dashboards
- Survey flows with answer-based branching
- Agent toolkit: MCP server, CLI & gateway keys
- Provider integrations
- Direct survey-sender submission to all providers, with support to resolve any issues
Best for growing teams & agencies
Enterprise
Scale surveys across brands, teams, and regions.
- Everything in Pro, plus:
- Custom survey libraries
- Advanced provider setup
- Dedicated onboarding
- Team permissions
- Custom AI workflows & agent skill chains
- Priority support
Best for large brands & high-volume teams
Questions, answered
New to RCS surveys? Search 50+ answers, or browse from the basics through exactly how RCS Surveys gets you live.
RCS basics
New to RCS? Start here.What is RCS, exactly? (in plain English)
RCS stands for Rich Communication Services, and it's basically text messaging's long-overdue upgrade. It's the modern standard behind the chat features in Google Messages and, since 2024, Apple's Messages app, and it turns plain gray texts into branded, app-like conversations: your logo and verified name at the top, images and video, swipeable product carousels, tappable buttons, and suggested replies. When a business uses it to reach customers you'll sometimes see it called RCS Business Messaging (RBM), which is the same technology sent from a verified brand profile. The best part for your customers: it all happens inside the texting app already on their phone, with nothing new to install.
What does RCS stand for?
Rich Communication Services. It's an industry messaging standard maintained by the GSMA (the global association of mobile operators) under its Universal Profile, which is the shared spec that lets carriers, Google, and Apple all speak the same richer language on top of regular texting. The word that matters most is "rich": where SMS gives you 160 plain characters, RCS adds images, video, branding, buttons, and real two-way conversation.
How is RCS different from SMS?
SMS is plain gray text capped at 160 characters with no branding, no images, and no way to tell who really sent it. RCS is the modern upgrade, delivered right inside the customer's native messaging app with no separate app to download. With RCS you get a verified, branded sender (your name, logo, and a verification checkmark), rich cards with images and video, horizontally swipeable carousels, tappable action buttons, suggested-reply chips, and real two-way conversations. You also get delivery and read receipts plus engagement analytics, and if a recipient's device doesn't support RCS, messages gracefully fall back to SMS. The result is an app-like experience that consistently drives higher open and engagement rates than plain SMS.
What does an RCS message actually look like next to a normal text?
An RCS message looks like a branded chat card, while a normal text is plain words: picture the difference between a receipt and a storefront. A normal text is gray, unbranded, and all words. An RCS message arrives with your business name, logo, and brand color across the top, can lead with a full-width image or video, and stacks tappable buttons and suggested-reply chips right under the message. For a survey, that means a tappable star rating, a 1-to-5 rating scale, or suggested-reply chips like "Loved it" / "It was okay" / "Needs work" sitting right under the question. Customers can swipe through a carousel of answer choices and tap their reply without ever leaving the conversation. It feels less like a survey link and more like a quick, on-brand chat.
Is RCS free for the people receiving my messages?
For your customers, RCS rides over their mobile data or Wi-Fi just like other chat messages, so there's no per-message charge the way old MMS sometimes carried. There's nothing to subscribe to and nothing to pay on their end. Businesses do pay to send RCS (pricing is set by carriers and your messaging provider), but for the recipient it simply shows up in the same inbox as their everyday texts.
Do my customers need to download an app to get RCS messages?
No, and that's one of RCS's biggest advantages. Messages land in the same texting app your customers already use every day: Google Messages on Android and the built-in Messages app on iPhone. There's no new app to download, no account to create, and no login. As long as their phone and carrier support RCS, your branded message simply shows up in their inbox next to texts from friends and family. That frictionless reach is a big reason RCS gets opened so often: you're meeting people exactly where they already are.
What is RCS Business Messaging (RBM)?
RBM is the business flavor of RCS: the version a brand uses to message customers from a verified profile, rather than a one-to-one chat between two people. It's the same underlying standard, but it adds the things businesses need: a verified sender identity with your logo and checkmark, rich templates, buttons and carousels, suggested replies, and analytics on delivery, reads, and engagement. When you read about brands sending order updates, appointment reminders, or promotions over RCS, RBM is what's doing the work behind the scenes.
Why are businesses moving from SMS to RCS?
Businesses are moving from SMS to RCS for three reasons: trust, richness, and insight. First, trust: a verified sender with your name, logo, and checkmark stands out in an inbox full of spammy unknown numbers, so people actually open it and answer. Second, richness: star ratings, tappable answer buttons, and suggested-reply chips let customers respond in a single tap without leaving the chat, which is why in-inbox surveys see far higher response and completion rates than an emailed or texted survey link. Third, insight: unlike SMS, RCS reports delivery and read receipts plus every tap, so you get live response analytics instead of a black box. Add the fact that RCS now reaches both Android and iPhone, and it becomes the natural next step for any team that wants to actually hear back from customers.
Is RCS here to stay, or is it a passing trend?
RCS is here to stay: it's a foundation, not a fad. RCS is an open GSMA standard backed by the world's mobile carriers, by Google, and now by Apple, which added support in 2024. When the three parties who control the world's phones and networks all align on the same standard, that's about as durable as messaging gets. The momentum is toward more capability over time (richer features and broader encryption), not less, so investing in RCS now is building on ground that keeps getting more solid.
RCS vs other messaging
How it stacks up against SMS, WhatsApp, and iMessage.Is RCS the same as WhatsApp or iMessage?
No: RCS is built into the default texting app on Android and iPhone, while WhatsApp and iMessage are separate or Apple-only, and that difference is the whole point. WhatsApp is a separate app your customers have to download, create an account for, and open on purpose. iMessage only works between Apple devices. RCS is built into the default texting app on both Android and iPhone, so there's nothing to install and no walled garden: your message lands in the same inbox as everyday texts from friends and family, whichever phone someone carries. In short, RCS gives you the rich, interactive feel of a chat app with the universal, no-app reach of regular texting.
RCS vs SMS vs MMS: what's the difference?
SMS is the original text: up to 160 characters of plain text, no images. MMS added basic media like a single photo or short video, but it's still unbranded, low-resolution, and often pricier to send. RCS is the modern standard that supersedes both: branded sender, high-quality images and video, carousels, buttons, suggested replies, typing indicators, and read receipts, all inside the native messaging app. Think of SMS and MMS as the old black-and-white set and RCS as the smart TV that replaced it, with SMS still there as a fallback when a phone can't receive RCS.
Is RCS replacing SMS?
It's upgrading SMS rather than switching it off overnight. RCS is designed to be the richer default, but it's built to fall back to SMS automatically whenever a recipient's phone or network can't receive RCS, so no message is ever lost. In practice you send one survey and each person gets the best format their phone supports: a rich, tappable RCS survey where possible, a plain-text question where not. SMS will be the safety net for a long while; RCS is simply where the experience (and the engagement) is headed.
How does RCS compare to WhatsApp Business?
Both let brands send rich, interactive messages, but the reach model is different. WhatsApp Business only reaches people who have WhatsApp installed and have opted into your messages there, which is great in markets where WhatsApp is dominant. RCS reaches people in the texting app that's already on their phone, with no app to install, so it leans on the universal habit of texting rather than a specific app's footprint. Many brands use both: WhatsApp where it's the local default, and RCS to reach the broad base of native-texting customers, especially across the US.
Does RCS fix the green-bubble vs blue-bubble problem between iPhone and Android?
Largely, yes. Historically a text from an Android phone showed up green and basic in an iPhone's Messages app, with no typing indicators, low-res media, and broken group chats. Now that Apple supports RCS, messages between iPhone and Android can use RCS instead of old SMS/MMS, which means higher-quality photos and video, typing indicators, read receipts, and better group chats across platforms. The bubble may still be colored differently, but the experience inside it is dramatically closer to parity than it used to be.
Is RCS the same thing as Google Messages "chat features"?
"Chat features" is just the label Google Messages puts on RCS in its settings. When an Android user turns on chat features, they're turning on RCS. So they're not two different things: RCS is the open standard, and "chat features" is one app's friendly name for it. Apple's Messages app simply calls it RCS. Either way, it's the same underlying technology that lets your branded, rich messages come through.
Devices, carriers & availability
Who can receive RCS, and where.Does RCS work on iPhone?
Yes. For years RCS was effectively Android-only, but that changed when Apple added support in iOS 18 in late 2024. iPhones on a recent version of iOS now send and receive RCS through the standard Messages app, which means a single RCS survey can reach both Android and iPhone users without building a separate version for each platform. Anyone on an older device that can't receive RCS still gets your message; it just arrives as a regular text instead.
Which iPhones and iOS versions support RCS?
RCS support arrived with iOS 18, so you generally need an iPhone capable of running iOS 18 or later (broadly iPhone XR/XS and newer) with the feature enabled by the carrier. It's handled in the built-in Messages app, not a separate download. Apple has continued to extend RCS support across later iOS updates, so the safe rule is: a reasonably current iPhone on an up-to-date iOS, with a carrier that has switched RCS on, can receive your rich messages, and everyone else falls back to SMS.
Does RCS work on Android?
Yes, Android is where RCS has been mainstream the longest. It runs through Google Messages, which is the default texting app on most Android phones, where users see it as "chat features." On the vast majority of modern Android devices RCS is on by default or a single toggle away, which is why the Android base is the most reliably RCS-reachable audience today.
Do all mobile carriers support RCS?
Support is broad and still expanding rather than universal. The major carriers in the US and many networks worldwide support RCS, often routed through Google's infrastructure, but a given person's reach depends on their specific carrier, plan, and device. This is exactly why fallback matters: you don't have to audit every recipient's carrier, because the system checks each number and delivers RCS where it's available and SMS where it isn't.
Is RCS available in my country?
RCS is available in many countries, with the US, UK, and much of Europe well covered, and the map keeps growing as carriers and Apple's rollout expand. Availability depends on local carriers enabling it and on device support in that market. The practical answer for a sender is reassuring: you target your audience as usual, RCS reaches everyone whose carrier and phone support it, and the rest receive a clean SMS fallback, so a survey reaches everyone even when RCS coverage varies.
How do my customers turn RCS on?
Usually your customers don't have to turn RCS on at all. On most Android phones, RCS ("chat features") is on by default in Google Messages, and on supported iPhones it activates through the Messages app once the carrier enables it. If someone wants to confirm it's on, it's a quick check in their Messages settings. Because it's built into the default texting app, there's no signup step for you to walk customers through, which keeps your audience as wide as your contact list.
How can I tell whether a contact can actually receive RCS?
Your RCS provider tells you automatically, so you don't have to figure it out manually. When you send through an RCS provider, the system checks each number's capability in real time and delivers RCS to the phones that support it and SMS to the ones that don't, all in the same survey send. In your reporting you can typically see which messages went out as RCS versus SMS, so you get a clear read on how much of your audience is RCS-reachable over time, without ever maintaining that list by hand.
What happens if someone's phone doesn't support RCS?
If a phone doesn't support RCS, the message automatically falls back to SMS, so nobody gets left out. If a recipient's device or carrier can't receive RCS (an older phone, say, or a network that hasn't switched it on) the message automatically falls back to a standard SMS or MMS. They still get your offer, reminder, or update; it just arrives as plain text without the rich card, buttons, and branding. You never have to manage this by hand: the system checks each number behind the scenes and delivers the richest format that phone can actually receive, every time.
Does RCS need Wi-Fi, or does it work over cell service?
Either works. RCS sends over an internet connection, so it uses whatever the phone has: mobile data or Wi-Fi. That's actually a perk over SMS, because a customer with a weak cellular signal but solid Wi-Fi can still receive your rich message. And if there's truly no data connection available, the fallback to SMS keeps the message getting through.
Security & privacy
Encryption, verification, and trust.Is RCS encrypted?
RCS traffic is encrypted in transit between the device and the messaging servers, so it isn't sent as plain readable text the way old SMS is. On top of that, personal one-to-one and group chats in Google Messages are end-to-end encrypted, meaning only the participants can read them. Encryption in messaging is an area that's actively expanding, with the standard moving toward end-to-end encryption that works across platforms, so the direction of travel is steadily more private, not less.
Is RCS end-to-end encrypted between iPhone and Android?
Not everywhere yet: cross-platform end-to-end encryption for RCS is rolling out between iPhone and Android rather than switched on everywhere at once. End-to-end encryption has been available for RCS chats within Google Messages for a while, and the GSMA standard was updated in 2025 to bring end-to-end encryption to RCS across platforms using the MLS protocol, so it can eventually protect messages sent between iPhone and Android too. That cross-platform encryption is rolling out as Apple and Google ship support, rather than being switched on everywhere at once. For sensitive personal chats the protection is real and growing; for business (A2P) messaging the priority is verified identity and in-transit security rather than the same end-to-end model.
What's a "verified sender," and what's the checkmark next to a business's name?
When a brand sends RCS, it does so from a verified business profile: your name, logo, brand color, and a verification checkmark, all shown right at the top of the conversation. Instead of squinting at an unknown number, your customer sees exactly who they're talking to. That verification is reviewed by Google and the mobile carriers before you can send a single message, which makes RCS far harder to spoof than SMS and gives people real confidence that a message is genuinely from you and not a scammer impersonating your brand. That built-in trust is a big part of why customers actually engage with RCS.
Can a business see whether I read its RCS message?
Often, yes, and it's one of the things that makes RCS so useful for senders. RCS supports delivery receipts (the message reached the phone) and read receipts (the customer opened it), though read receipts depend on the recipient having that setting enabled. For the recipient it works just like read receipts in any modern chat app. For the business it means far better insight than SMS, which gives you almost no feedback on whether anything actually landed.
Is RCS more secure than SMS?
Meaningfully, yes. SMS travels largely unencrypted and has no built-in way to prove who sent a message, which is why it's a favorite channel for spoofing and phishing. RCS encrypts traffic in transit, adds end-to-end encryption for personal chats, and, crucially for business messaging, requires brands to verify their identity before they can send. That verified, harder-to-impersonate sender is the single biggest security upgrade for customers, because it helps them trust that a message claiming to be from their bank or pharmacy really is.
How does RCS cut down on spam and scams?
RCS cuts down on spam mostly by making senders accountable through brand verification. Before a brand can send business RCS, it has to pass brand and sender verification with Google and the carriers, so anonymous bulk spam can't masquerade as a trusted company the way it does over SMS. Customers see a verified name, logo, and checkmark instead of a random number, and the platforms monitor engagement signals like spam reports closely, so bad actors get flagged fast. It isn't a magic shield, but the combination of verified identity and active monitoring makes RCS a much harder place to run scams.
Do I need permission to send people RCS surveys?
Yes. RCS follows the same consent rules as text outreach generally: people opt in before you message them, every survey makes clear who it's from, and replying STOP unsubscribes them instantly (with HELP pointing to support). You can't survey purchased lists or anyone who never agreed to hear from you. None of this is unique to RCS; if you already run a compliant SMS program, you're most of the way there. One thing worth knowing: because carriers watch RCS engagement closely, problems like high spam complaints surface fast, so good opt-in habits really matter. Every RCS Surveys template ships with compliant opt-in and opt-out language already built in, so you start on the right side of the line.
Is RCS compliant with rules like TCPA and GDPR?
RCS can absolutely be run compliantly; the channel doesn't change your legal obligations, it inherits them. The same frameworks that govern text and data outreach apply: get clear opt-in consent, identify yourself, honor opt-outs immediately, and handle personal data per regulations like GDPR. RCS actually helps on the trust side, because verified sender identity and easy opt-out fit neatly with what these rules expect. As always, your compliance depends on how you collect consent and manage your lists, so treat RCS like the rest of your messaging program and you'll be on solid footing.
RCS for business
Sending RCS as a brand.How do I start sending RCS surveys as a business?
At a high level: you create a verified business sender (your brand profile and "agent"), get it approved by Google and the carriers, connect to an RCS-capable messaging provider, and then design and send your surveys. The verification and setup steps are the part that traditionally slows teams down. That's the gap RCS Surveys closes: you start from pre-built, on-brand survey templates and guided setup so the submission is correct the first time, then connect your provider and send, instead of assembling all of this from scratch.
What is a verified sender or agent, and how do I get verified?
Your "agent" is the branded identity that sends your RCS messages: the business name, logo, color, description, and contact details customers see at the top of the chat, plus the checkmark that proves it's really you. To get verified you submit that brand information along with sample messages and your opt-in details for review by Google and the carriers, who confirm you are who you say you are before approving you to send. It's a one-time gate that's well worth it, because verified identity is exactly what earns the higher trust and engagement RCS is known for.
How long does brand and sender verification take?
It varies, because it depends on outside reviewers (Google and the carriers), not just on you, and it commonly runs a few weeks. The biggest cause of delay is a submission that's missing or inconsistent: a logo that doesn't meet spec, sample messages that don't match your use case, or opt-in language that isn't clear. Getting it right the first time is the fastest path, which is the whole idea behind starting from pre-vetted templates and guided setup rather than a blank form.
What's the difference between A2P and P2P RCS?
P2P means person-to-person: two people chatting in their messaging apps. A2P means application-to-person: a business application sending messages to customers, like order updates, appointment reminders, or feedback surveys. RCS Business Messaging is A2P, which is why it carries the extra structure around it: verified brand identity, content review, opt-in requirements, and analytics. When this site talks about RCS for collecting customer feedback, it's A2P RCS we mean.
What kinds of survey questions can I actually ask over RCS?
Over RCS you can ask star ratings, recommend scales, multiple-choice buttons, carousels, and open-ended questions, a lot more than a plain text can. You can ask a tappable star rating, a 1-to-5 recommend scale, a Customer Satisfaction or Customer Effort question with suggested-reply chips, multiple-choice questions as tappable answer buttons, or a swipeable carousel of choices. You can branch on the answer (a low score opens a "what went wrong?" follow-up; a high score asks for a review) and end with an open-ended question the customer simply types back. Underneath it's still a conversation, so the whole survey happens in one thread, one tap at a time.
How much does it cost to send RCS?
Per-message pricing for RCS is set by the carriers and your messaging provider, and it varies by market and volume, so there isn't one universal rate. Generally it's priced as a messaging channel alongside SMS, and the much higher response rate per survey sent is what justifies the cost for most senders. RCS Surveys itself is about the survey templates, personalization, flows, and live analytics that make your feedback program; the actual message-sending charges come from whichever provider you connect, so you keep full control of (and visibility into) those rates.
Do I need a direct relationship with Google or the carriers to send RCS?
No, you don't need a direct relationship with Google or the carriers. In practice you work through an RCS-capable messaging provider (an aggregator or platform) that handles the connections to Google and the carriers for you, including the verification submission. You bring your brand and your surveys; the provider brings the plumbing. RCS Surveys is provider-flexible, so you connect the gateway you prefer and we help you wire it up, rather than locking you into one relationship.
Can I track responses and analyze results on RCS surveys?
Yes, and this is one of RCS's biggest upgrades over SMS and email surveys. Because RCS is a richer, two-way channel, you get live response analytics: delivery receipts, read receipts (when enabled by the recipient), every star rating and answer-button tap, and the open-ended replies customers type back, all rolling up in real time rather than waiting for a survey to close. You can watch your Net Promoter Score or Customer Satisfaction score move as responses land, segment by question, and read open-ended answers as they come in, instead of the near-total blind spot SMS leaves you with.
Will RCS actually improve my survey response rates?
It removes most of the friction that holds email and SMS surveys back, which is why brands consistently see far stronger response and completion rates. A verified, branded sender gets opened more because it's recognizable and trusted; a tappable star rating or answer button lets customers respond in a single tap instead of clicking a link, loading a form, and switching apps; and because the survey lives in the inbox, people finish it in the same thread it arrived in. Your exact numbers will depend on your audience and timing, but the mechanics, more trust and one-tap answering instead of a link to a separate page, are squarely pointed at hearing back from far more of your customers.
Can customers reply to my RCS surveys, and can I automate the follow-ups?
Yes on both counts. RCS is genuinely two-way, so customers answer in the same thread, and suggested-reply chips and answer buttons make responding as easy as a tap. You can automate the survey with flows that branch on how someone answers, a low rating triggers a "sorry to hear that, what happened?" follow-up while a high rating asks for a public review, and with RCS Surveys Pro you can layer in an AI assistant, grounded in your own knowledge base, that reads open-ended replies, asks a smart clarifying question, and routes urgent complaints to a human. That keeps your feedback loop running around the clock without anyone watching the inbox.
Using RCS Surveys
How the product works.Do I need to be technical to use RCS Surveys?
No, it's built for marketing, customer-experience, and ops teams, not developers. Every survey template is drag-and-edit: swap the questions, scales, answer buttons, suggested replies, colors, and images in a visual editor without touching code. When you're ready to send, you connect your provider once and reuse it for every survey. Pro layers on CSV personalization (map fields like first name, order number, or visit date in a few clicks), multi-step branching survey flows, and AI that reads and follows up on open-ended replies, all configurable by anyone on the team. Developers can go deeper via your provider's API if you want to, but nothing here requires it.
How many survey templates are included?
250+ professionally designed, ready-to-send survey templates spanning 80+ survey categories across 12+ industries (retail, hospitality, healthcare, events, real estate, finance, automotive, and more) plus 100+ ready-made multi-step survey flows. You'll find Net Promoter Score, Customer Satisfaction, and Customer Effort surveys, post-purchase and post-visit feedback, event and onboarding check-ins, and more, each shipping with the right question types (star ratings, 1-to-5 scales, answer buttons, open-ended prompts) and on-brand styling already in place, so you start from something proven rather than a blank canvas. Full access to the entire library is included on every plan, including Free; Pro and Enterprise add personalization, AI follow-ups, branching flows, deeper analytics, and higher send volumes on top.
Which providers can I connect?
You can connect Sureshot.io and Twilio today, with Signalmash, Vonage, and Bandwidth coming soon, or bring your own RCS gateway; we're provider-flexible, so you're never locked in, and we'll help you wire up your own gateway. The key idea is build once, connect anywhere: you design and personalize your survey a single time, then point it at whichever backend fits your stack. Switch providers or add new ones whenever you need to, without rebuilding a thing.
Can I personalize surveys for each recipient?
Yes. On Pro you can upload a CSV and map fields like first name, order number, appointment date, or the product they bought into any survey in a few clicks, so every recipient gets a survey that reads like it was written for them ("How was your stay at the Harbor Suite, {{first_name}}?"). Personalization works hand in hand with branching flows and AI follow-ups, which means you can tailor not just the opening question but the whole conversation based on who they are and how they answer. It's the difference between a generic blast and a survey that feels one-to-one, at scale.
Can the AI actually read and follow up on open-ended responses?
Yes. With Pro, an LLM grounded in your own knowledge base (FAQs, policies, listings, hours, pricing, and docs) can read what customers type back, ask a smart clarifying question in your brand voice, and act on it, around the clock. It handles real back-and-forth: thanking happy respondents and nudging them toward a public review, asking an unhappy respondent what specifically went wrong, summarizing themes across open-ended answers, and routing urgent complaints to a human the moment a response needs one. Pair it with branching survey flows to ask the right next question based on how someone rated you, so your feedback loop keeps running even outside business hours.
Can I bring my own RCS provider or number?
Yes. Bring-your-own-gateway is a core part of the design, so if you already have an RCS provider or sender set up, you can connect it and keep your existing numbers and relationships. If you don't, you can start with one of our active integrations like Sureshot.io or Twilio. Either way you build and personalize your surveys once and route them through whatever backend you choose, which keeps you in control and avoids lock-in.
What does RCS Surveys cost?
There's a Free plan that includes full access to the 250+ survey template library plus a handful of free RCS sends to test, so you can run a real survey before paying anything. Pro adds CSV personalization, AI follow-ups, branching survey flows, provider integrations, deeper response analytics, and a monthly send allowance, with Enterprise for higher volumes and custom needs. Note that the per-message sending charges come from whichever provider you connect, separate from your plan, so you keep full visibility into those rates.
When is the best time to send a survey?
Right after the moment you're asking about, while it's still fresh. Trigger a post-purchase survey when the order is delivered, a post-visit survey within an hour or two of checkout, a support survey the moment a ticket closes, and an onboarding check-in a week or two in. Because RCS lands in the inbox people actually watch, a well-timed one-tap question gets answered far more often than a survey email sent the next day. Keep it short, lead with a single rating, and only branch into deeper questions for people who tap through, you'll get more honest, more complete responses than a long form ever collects.
Are RCS survey responses anonymous?
RCS survey responses are anonymous only if you choose to report them that way, so it's worth deciding deliberately. Because you send to your own opted-in contacts, you generally know who you're surveying, which is great for closing the loop on a specific bad experience or following up one-to-one. When you want candid feedback at the program level (employee pulse checks, sensitive topics), you can present and report responses in aggregate so individuals aren't singled out, and make clear in the opening message how the answers will be used. Either way, every survey respects opt-in and STOP, and you should only collect what you actually need.
How long does it take to get an RCS survey approved?
Getting an RCS survey sender approved commonly takes weeks, because it depends on the gatekeepers (Google and the carriers), not on us. Every RCS sender has to clear Google brand and agent verification, review by the mobile carriers and telecoms (which varies market by market), and each provider's own content and opt-in rules. Done from scratch this commonly takes weeks, and a single missing logo, sample message, or opt-in detail can send the application back to the start. RCS Surveys streamlines it: because your survey starts from templates modeled on programs that are already approved, with branding, opt-in language, and message structure aligned to what reviewers expect, you submit correctly the first time and avoid most rejection-and-resubmit loops. We also help resolve any flags directly with the provider. We can't guarantee approval (those decisions are Google's and the carriers'), but a pre-vetted, correctly formatted submission is the biggest lever for getting live faster.
Agents & automation
Use RCS Surveys from AI agents, MCP, and the CLI.Can AI agents use RCS Surveys programmatically?
Yes. RCS Surveys is agent-native. An authenticated gateway (/api/agent) lets an autonomous AI agent discover, author, clone, render, send, and pull results from RCS surveys without anyone clicking through a dashboard. The same gateway is exposed three ways over one typed contract: a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server, a command-line tool, and an embeddable client. So whether you're building on Claude, an agent SDK, or your own service, the platform behaves like a first-class tool rather than a website you have to script a browser against.
Does RCS Surveys have an MCP server?
Yes. The @rcs-surveys/agent-toolkit ships an MCP server called rcs-surveys-mcp (hand-rolled, zero runtime dependencies, JSON-RPC over stdio). Register it once with any MCP host — for Claude it's a single `claude mcp add` command pointing at npx -y -p @rcs-surveys/agent-toolkit rcs-surveys-mcp with your agent key (the toolkit talks to the hosted gateway by default) — and your agent gains ten native tools: capabilities, search_surveys, get_survey, render_survey, create_survey, clone_survey, submit_survey, send_survey, get_results, and get_usage. The MCP server is available on the Pro plan.
Is there an API or CLI for RCS Surveys?
Yes to both. Under the hood everything runs over the /api/agent HTTP gateway, and the agent toolkit wraps it as a JSON-in/JSON-out CLI (the `rcs-surveys` command) so you can search, render, clone, create, send, and read results from a shell, CI, or an agent loop — pipe it straight into jq. There's also a typed GatewayClient you can embed in your own code. The packaged MCP server and CLI are Pro-plan features; the gateway and typed client are available to embed in your own service.
How do AI agents authenticate, and is sending safe?
Agents authenticate with scoped API keys (prefixed rcsk_), minted by an org admin and shown only once before being stored as a hash. Each key carries a least-privilege set of scopes — surveys:read, surveys:write, surveys:submit, marketplace:clone, surveys:send, results:read, usage:read — so a key can only do what it was minted for, and it's revocable at any time. The agent gateway is a separate rail from the human app: neither token works on the other's surface. Sending is hardened too — destinations are validated as E.164 numbers, the gateway is rate-limited, and an agent send must clear the exact same provider-approval gate as a human send, so there's no back door to ship an unapproved survey.
Are there ready-made agent workflows (skills)?
Yes. Four packaged skill chains string the tools into repeatable jobs: find-and-clone-survey (shop the marketplace and clone the best-fit survey), author-and-publish (turn a brief into a validated survey and submit it for approval), survey-in-a-box (clone, validate, send, and report the response funnel), and response-analyst (read results and open-ended replies and summarize the themes). Each declares the least-privilege scopes it needs, so you can mint a key that matches exactly one workflow. A per-call crypto payment rail (x402, USDC on Base) for cloning and sending without an account is fully designed and coming soon.
Be first to send next-gen RCS surveys
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